Thiruvananthapuram: India and Australia are collaborating in a project to increase the yield of fruits and vegetables in the state using stingless bees. An MoU for the seven-million-dollar pollination project has been signed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Kerala Agriculture University and University of Western Sydney. A team of 17 professors and scientists from the University of Sydney are currently at KAU at Vellayani for implementing the project in both the countries with the support of farmers’ participatory research.
The stingless bee species prevalent in Kerala was identified as Trigona iridipennis and its domestication standardised by Dr. S. Devanesan, former dean and professor of entomology at KAU. Apart from apiculture scientists, farmers from Kerala will participate in the project. They include Surendran from Kannur and Radhakrishnan Nair from Nedumangad. The former has 2,000 colonies of stingless bees and the latter 600. “We want to commercialise the project in which stingless bees can be produced on a mass scale,” Prof. Devanesan told DC. The Australian delegation is led by associate professor Dr. Rober Spooner and his team comprising Dr. Nisha Rakhesh and Prof. James Cook along with other environmentalists.
